Reflections

In the days before we left, people kept asking us: “Aren’t you excited?”

Really, it hadn’t hit me yet. I was too busy worrying about saying goodbye to friends and living in the Hotel California, AKA the downtown Dallas Westin. (How can the elevator button in the lobby not WORK?)

Finally, yesterday, when the plane was making its descent into Mexico City, I peered out the window and thought, “This is home…?” The air looked like it does when you fly into Southern California, only thicker, and browner. A sea of buildings stood packed into grid-like squares, leaning so close together that it looked like there wasn’t any air between them. Everything went on forever — the red-tiled roofs, the high-rise office buildings, the occasional spherical top of a cathedral. There was so much of everything. So much density. I thought: “How do people breathe here?”

Then I grabbed my notebook and wrote, “WE LIVE HERE?!?!”

A few hours later, I had learned the Spanish word for those little airport carts (“carrito”), and we were in a van cab headed to our new apartment in Polanco.

The moving company told me I couldn’t take any pantry items on the move.

The whole idea made me really sad.

I’ve spent the past two years building up my pantry. It’s the enabler of all my cooking whims. If I want to, say, make a quick buckwheat soup, I don’t have to go to the grocery store and buy mirin, because I have it already. Not that I’ve ever made buckwheat soup. But still — the mirin was there. And I’ll now have to give it up, without having explored its possibilites. Ditto for my sherry vinegar, and my bulghur wheat, and my bread flour. And don’t get me started on my sweet smoked paprika. It’s heaven dust.

The day before the movers arrived, I decided to ask our moving coordinator about the pantry. She’s the main one in charge — she specializes in moves to Mexico.

I started in easy. “Can I bring canned goods?” 

She said yes.

I said: “What about like…. baking mixes?” 

Her, after a short pause: “Are you saying you want to take flour?”

YES, lady, I want to keep my damn flour collection. I got white whole wheat and soy and semolina in there, the latter of which makes some kick-ass jalapeno cheese bread. I brought a hunk of it wrapped in foil to a Feist concert last year. (Oh, memories. See? This is why I want to keep this stuff.)

I said, “Well,  yes, flours. And pancake mix and stuff.” She was silent, so I added, not to seem like an American elitist: “I’m sure I can get everything in Mexico, but I don’t know, it seems like such a waste to throw it all away.” 

She said I can take small quantities of items, as long as they’re taped up tightly and won’t spill. 

Later, I thought: Really, why do I want these things so bad? They’re just things. And they won’t exactly help me create a new life and new pantry in Mexico. Part of the fun will be finding a new pancake mix, a new brand of canned tomatoes, and cereal, granola, olive oil. And I’ll get to buy fun stuff like dried chilies and tamarind pods and giant papayas. The American stuff should stay. I’ll give it to a friend who cooks. This is part of the process.

So… last Wednesday, the movers arrived. And contrary to what they said earlier, they packed up the entire pantry, including my half-eaten Dagoba chocolate bar.

All my “American stuff should stay” talk flew out the window. I get to keep my wheat flours! And my paprika!

I will bake celebratory loaves and a big bowl of chili when everything arrives in a month or so.